VacationSelector
Palm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms, Palm Springs
Palm SpringsPalm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms
The Riverwalk and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, Wilmington
WilmingtonThe Riverwalk and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge

Photos: Palm Springs by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Wilmington by Unexpected Snacks, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Wilmington?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm Springs’s own page.

Choose Wilmington for

  • beaches
  • families
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Wilmington’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Palm Springs 7, Wilmington 73: Wilmington leads by 66 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Wilmington 48: Wilmington leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Wilmington 40: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Wilmington 40: Wilmington leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Wilmington 58: Palm Springs leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Wilmington 45: Wilmington leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Wilmington 62: Wilmington leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Wilmington 28: Wilmington leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Wilmington 33: Palm Springs leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Wilmington 42: Wilmington leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs and Wilmington are level on 40.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Wilmington 33: Palm Springs leads by 47 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Wilmington.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Wilmington
Best match
45match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Palm Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Wilmington in July

32 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsWilmington

Where the figures come from

Palm Springs has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre). Wilmington: 1991-2020 normals, Wilmington / The Palms Mobile Home Park (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsWilmington
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation146 m9 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsWilmington International Airport (ILM)5 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsWilmington
City population44,575115,451
People per km²181839
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Springs or Wilmington somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.